Transgender Youth Don’t Regret Transitioning

Transgender youth don’t regret receiving gender-affirming care, a new study shows. Two hundred and twenty trans kids who have been transitioning for at least five years participated in the study, and it was published in JAMA Pediatrics. The participants were recruited through Princeton University’s TransYouth Project, a national, longitudinal study of transgender youth.

Ninety-seven percent of participants reported their satisfaction with having transitioned young and are continuing gender-affirming care. Only 4% of participants detransitioned and reported regret. That’s nine participants out of 220. For comparison, roughly 6% of people who get knee replacement surgery report having regretted it. Yet many claim to know better than transgender youth and assume that a large majority of them detransition.

Well, this study proves those people wrong. Out of those nine, only four of them actually stopped gender-affirming care; one of them is planning on stopping, and the other four are actually continuing their gender-affirming care. The data suggests that “regret” is multifaceted and may not be connected specifically with the reversal of one’s gender identity.

The leader of the study, Kristina Olsen, tells the Washington Post, “It’s kind of a wide range of things that we included in regret. It could have been to anything.” Things such as being put on puberty blockers instead of hormone replacement therapy or medication side effects could be reasons for regret.

One important thing to note, however, is that the study participants were predominantly white and wealthy due to the disparages in access to gender-affirming care for marginalized communities.

Kristina also sys, “There are huge disparities in who accesses that care,” in reference to the lack of the diversity present in the study.

An associate professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at the University of Massachusetts told TWP, “The thing people misunderstand about gender-affirming care is that it’s not easy to get … even if you live in a state where there are no legislative or policy barriers. Research has shown us that many more trans people—youth and adults—desire gender-affirming care than are able to access it.”

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